✔️Destruction ✔️

-1- ☀️🌊 The calm before the storm.

   Do you sometimes get the feeling that, even though you have everything you could possibly ever want, you're as happy as you'll ever be, in the primé de la vie, something's going to happen? Like a bad feeling or superstition on the horizon, but you can't put a finger on it?

    Yes. Percy Jackson faced that exact dilemma.

    Having an amazing family, with him and his girlfriend attending college at New Rome, one could call this a fairytale ending.

   Alas, the Greeks invented Tragedy for a reason.

  Thinking back on it, Percy would've thought his weird feelings to be a kind of warning from the fates, as a kind of cruel consolation for their favourite hero.

 This story starts after the second giant war. After returning from Tartarus to meet the love of his life, at least it seemed like that to him, their relationship was.......strained, to say the least. 

  Percy knew their love life was in shambles, but hoped that by avoiding the topic altogether, the problem would go away.

 Lot of good it did him.

   After a tearful reunion with the missing member of the 7, Leo, a summon to Olympus would change their lives forever.

   The demigods were offered immortality, like the kind the hunters of Artemis had. The cabin counsellors, the veterans that had fought in the 2nd Titan war, were offered the proposition as well.

   It was a no-brainier. Of course they'd accept!

    But it wasn't like that for everyone. Or one particular demigod, at least.

     Percy Jackson was the only one that actually wanted to stay mortal. To say he shocked the council would be a grave understatement. He used his decline  to wish for stuff the demigods and Olympians needed sorely. 

    He really thought it through.

   He didn't expect Annabeth to accept immortality as well as everyone else. They'd had talks about how they wanted their future to go. College, a job, then a family, you know, the ordinary couple stuff.

   She said they were going to be together forever.

   Well I guess we had different versions of forever, thought Percy.

   But Percy didn't have it in his heart to be angry with her. She was fulfilling her greatest dreams! Immortal, with her mother, top notch shape, redesigning Olympus in her own image. He didn't have the right to stop her from doing what she thought was best- satisfying her fatal flaw.

   He'd just wished she'd discussed it with him before accepting. I mean, he wasn't that much of an idiot not to be serious when it truly mattered.

   He also thought that was the end of their relationship. Like, one of them being immortal and the other staying mortal? That was a recipe for heartbreak.

   Yet, she didn't end their relationship. Yeah, yeah, he should've ended it then and there, seeing as there was no future for the both of them, but he just didn't have the heart to.

   He knew she was just stringing him along. The half-hearted kisses and hugs were enough to inform him of that. She said she wanted to finish college, before permanently moving to Olympus.

   He didn't say anything. 

  How could he?

  Sure, he was acting like a desperate fool, wanting to cling on to the hope of what once was.

  Rekindle old flames, like old couples used to say.

 But, in the end, it was futile. Useless.

A proper tragedy. 

One that even the fates couldn't think of anything crueler.

   Battling with scars and memories from Tartarus, coupled with a detached girlfriend, the world seemed....too bright for him. Too animated for how he constantly felt inside.

  Even after Percy's intervention, Apollo was still turned mortal. Percy didn't follow him on his quests for one specific reason.

  He was still mortal. He had a family dependent on him, and he had to be responsible.

 But he sympathised with the older, former, sun deity. So, even if he wasn't able or there, he still sacrificed a bit of food, amongst other things, to Apollo, so at least his best friend Jason would be semi-okay, since he'd heard the other son of Zeus had followed his brother in his quest.

  If he thought his screwed-up fairytale demigod life was bad, it was about to get octaves worse.

 The calm broke when Apollo had returned to his immortal grace, and Percy had almost finished college.

 It was the calm before the storm.